


Sometimes This Has a Hot, Sweet Taste

by raven_bird



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Memories, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre- Ant Man (2015) Post-Credits Scene, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 12:26:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4479218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raven_bird/pseuds/raven_bird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky was told, years later, that scent has been proven to be the most powerful trigger for memories.</p><p>That’s not how it was for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes This Has a Hot, Sweet Taste

**Author's Note:**

  * For [that_shipper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/that_shipper/gifts).



> So I HAVE NOT seen the post-credit scene for Ant-Man yet, so this is probably not going to be canon-compliant at all. Hopefully it's somewhat alright though!
> 
> I apologize for any mistakes in the historical aspect - if you see any, I'd be really grateful if you pointed them out! (BIG thank you to [Laney](http://iamjacksaesthetic.tumblr.com) for looking over it ❤)
> 
> Dedicated to [Nicole](http://archiveofourown.org/users/that_shipper), because she's completely amazing, and has written me TWO beautiful, beautiful fics that I adore. ❤ (also, I really did mean to write this sooner, but I am an awful procrastinator. Oops. Hope you like it, Nicole!!
> 
> Title from 'Buzzcut Season' by Lorde

 

 

 

Bucky was told, years later, that scent has been proven to be the most powerful trigger for memories.

 

That’s not how it was for him.

 

 

 

 

The Winter Soldier was bleeding. He could feel it seeping out of his body, warm and sticky. The water had washed away the majority of it, but it hadn’t sewn up the cuts. The blood was beginning to trickle down his face again, and he wiped it away with his left hand. The runny liquid was stark red against the metal. _Shit._ He was going to have to wash the blood off before it dried between the panels on the prosthetic.

 

Behind him lay the man from the helicarrier. Even now, every instinct that had been drilled into him was urging him to turn back, to finish the mission. He couldn’t. The man was too inexplicably familiar. The Winter Soldier had never encountered anyone like that in previous operations.

 

Or maybe he had. He couldn’t remember.

 

All that he knew was that this man was not someone that he could ever kill.

 

Tugging at the very back of his mind was a persistent, nagging feeling, like he had misplaced something of the utmost importance. The more he tried to catch and examine that thought, though, the more insubstantial it became.

 

Again, with his right hand this time, he reached up to wipe away the blood from his face. As the back of his hand passed over his mouth, some of the liquid smeared on to his lips. The bitter taste of blood leaked into his mouth, and before he knew quite what was happening, a hazy memory had risen out of his mind, and he was in another time, another century.

 

_Bucky led Steve over to the couch, tasting blood from his split lip._

_“I had him on the ropes, Buck, you didn’t need to step in.”_

_They were back at their old place, the one that never seemed to be at a comfortable temperature. It was so scorching that even the breeze blowing through the open window wasn’t doing anything to lessen the heat._

_“That’s what you always say, pal.” Bucky touched his own lip, gingerly._

_“Because it’s true.”_

_Not wanting to fight with his best friend, Bucky shrugged and grabbed a cloth from the bathroom. He drenched it in cool water and dabbed at his wounds, and then rinsed it out again. The red diluted until it was nothing but a light pink, and Bucky wrung out the cloth, taking it back into the other room._

_He pushed Steve backwards, unbuttoning the other man’s shirt so that he could get at the injuries that were soaking blood through the fabric. Very determinedly, he kept his mind on the task in front of him and didn’t think about any other reasons that he might unbutton Steve’s shirt._

_Steve shifted slightly, looking uncomfortable. His eyes darted to Bucky’s face and then away. Finally, he grabbed the cloth._

_“I can do that myself.” he muttered, a slight pink flushing over his face. Bucky nodded, clearing his throat, and sank back down on the couch beside him. He carefully kept his gaze away from the exposed skin and collarbone of his friend._

_“You ever going to stop picking fights with everyone?”_

_“I don’t pick fights,” Steve pulled the washcloth away from his chest to examine the blood. “I just tell people when they’re bein’ assholes.”_

_“Most people don’t take too kindly to that.”_

_“Well, I don’t take too kindly to people who aren’t gonna be respectful.”_

_Bucky allowed himself a smile and ruffled Steve’s hair affectionately, the same way he had been doing it for years. “You and me both, Stevie.”_

 

 

 

The Winter Soldier swallowed, feeling strangely out of place and terrified. The taste of blood was gone, and so was the memory that had sprung out of nowhere. _Bucky._ There was that name again. In an effort to calm down, he began walking again, aimlessly, in hopes of finding something that might explain this confusion. He didn’t have any real hope, though, so it came as a surprise when he recognized a face on a nearby poster.

 

The Winter Soldier tore down the paper from the pole. It ripped, with the man’s face split in two, but he was still recognizable. The man from the helicarrier. _Steve,_ his mind supplied him, as he thought back to the memory he had just seen.

 

Sure enough, displayed in bold letters on the page were the words ‘Captain America’, and below that, in smaller font, ‘the life of Steve Rogers, now on display at the Smithsonian.’ 

 

The Winter Soldier knew what he had to do next. He set off for the museum.

 

 

 

 

He left the museum in a state of even worse confusion. He didn’t know what to call himself anymore. He wasn’t the asset, but he was not Bucky. Not yet.

 

The memories began to come faster. He found himself spending more time in parks, which were often busy enough for him to go unnoticed. One afternoon, there was a young woman there, a sketchpad open on her knee. He couldn’t see whatever she was drawing, but the scratching of her pencil against the paper was agonizingly familiar, like something that he grew up with. And when he closed his eyes, he saw Steve, his face worked up in concentration, hunched over a sheet of paper. His hair was falling in his eyes.

 

He opened his eyes again, blinking away the memory. It was a short one, the briefest reminder of his past life, but it was no less poignant than the other memories that had been plaguing him.

 

The memory of his younger sister, begging for a piggy-back ride, had come to him while he was watching the children race each other around the playground, their shrieks mixing with laughter. He heard the rumbling of a motorcycle and thought of leather jackets and a tall man that used to be a foot shorter. Someone whistled, and he was suddenly at basic training, surrounded by other men in new, pressed uniforms.

 

When it got to be too much, he would find his way into a corner of some abandoned building, curling up amidst the ruins and shattered glass. No memories followed him there, and he was grateful for it. Sometimes, he tried to stitch what he knew together, trying to make sense of what he knew. It never seemed to work, though. His memories were still too few, and didn’t slot together easily in his mind. There was so much he didn’t know, and it made him want to scream.

 

He didn’t. He couldn’t. Instead, he watched the children dash around the playground with a bitter sense of longing for a past that was long buried.

 

 

 

 

 

He stopped outside a bakery, brought to a halt by the overwhelming smell of yeast and rising bread. He could feel another memory coming on, blurry. It sharpened as he focused, and before he knew it, he was back to a time that was now almost a century ago now.

 

_Bucky was sitting on the floor of Steve’s kitchen, his hand tracing along the floorboard distractedly as Steve shuffled cards. Steve’s mother was kneading the bread at the table, watching the two of them with an caring expression._

_It was the middle of winter, and though they had stuffed blankets and cloth around the window to add a letter extra insulation, Bucky could still feel a draft breezing in from the streets outside. He shot a look at his friend, who had taken to shivering uncontrollably when they had to walk outside for too long. Steve seemed too focused on the game to let anything like sickness bother him, though._

_“Ready?” said Steve, dividing the cards into two piles and letting Bucky choose one. Bucky had just taught Steve how to play War, and Steve adored the game, flipping his cards over with boyish enthusiasm._

_Steve’s cards weren’t the slippery, shiny new ones that Bucky was accustomed to. Instead, they were dirty and worn, and Bucky was pretty sure that a couple were missing. Steve insisted on playing with them, though. Bucky never fought him on this, especially since Steve’s mother had once pulled Bucky aside and explained to him that the set had once belonged to Steve’s father._

_“War!” Bucky cried, when the numbers on their cards matched, and they spread a couple of cards face-down on the floor. They were just about to begin the next bout of flipping when Steve turned away to cough, an awful, hacking cough that seemed to tear out of his body in violent bursts._

_Leaving her dough behind, Steve’s mother hurried towards her son. Bucky, too, abandoned his cards, reaching out for his friend, but Steve pushed their hands away._

_As soon as the coughing had died down enough for him to talk, he wheezed out, “’m fine. Just – just a cough.”_

_Both Sarah Rogers and Bucky Barnes knew better than that, but they didn’t say anything. Only rarely did they acknowledge the sicknesses out loud: they knew that Steve hated to be reminded of it. He thought it was a sign of some sort of inferiority. Bucky knew better, though. He knew that it was a sign of how hard Steve had been fighting, since infancy, and he knew that Steve Rogers would go on fighting for as long as he lived._

_Instead, Steve’s mother said brightly, “How about I get this dough baked, and then we’ll have some fresh bread?”_

_And Steve nodded, grinning at the both of them. Nobody mentioned it again._

 

 

 

 

Often, in his memories, he caught flashes of longing, an aching for something that he couldn’t have. Glimpses of golden hair, bony spines and pale skin flickered through his mind, making him shiver with hunger and desire. He never for a second believed that he was ever sated, though, thinking instead that he had continued the yearning perpetually until he had been separated from his friend.

 

Then came another memory, one that proved how utterly wrong this idea had been.

 

_It was the night Bucky found out that he was going to be shipped off to the army. He didn’t know when, but he knew it would be soon. The walk home was spent in anxious thought, imagining what it would feel like to open their apartment door and tell Steve about the imminent departure. It was tough, trying to sort out his feelings. He knew that he should be feeling glad about the opportunity to serve his country, but patriotism didn’t come as easily to him as it did to Steve. He loved his country, of course, but when it came down to it, his allegiances didn’t lie with the flag or national anthem. Instead, he was tied to a man with bruised knuckles and angry eyes._

_He’d be leaving that man behind, soon._

_That was the part of this whole mess that made him want to ignore the orders, run away from it all. He had never been quite like Steve, always up for a fight. He would fight when he had to, but this would be the first time that he’d be leaving Steve behind._

_It terrified him, it really did, when he thought about it. He could only imagine the kind of trouble that Steve might get into when he was away. He didn’t like to think about Steve being tossed in a jail cell for lying on the enlistment form, and he didn’t like to think about Steve bleeding out in allies because Bucky wasn’t there to have his back. In fact, it was better not to think at all._

_He pushed open the door, hearing the familiar creak and wondering how many more times he would get to hear it before he left. From somewhere inside the apartment, there was the sound of footsteps, and then Steve appeared._

_“Buck!” he said. “I wasn’t expecting you back for a while.” He had been wearing a smile, but it faded quickly as they looked at each other. Steve had obviously gathered what had happened from Bucky’s expression._

_“How long do you have? Before you leave?”_

_“Not long,” answered Bucky. He stepped closer inside, kicking off his shoes, and when he turned to walk past Steve he found the other man chewing his lip, his gaze unfocused, looking as though he were deep in thought. “Steve?”_

_“It’s nothing.” Steve shook his head, stepping away. “C’mon, jerk, we gotta eat something. I feel like I’m about to starve.”_

_The spent the evening in silence. Sometimes Steve would bring it up, asking a question or two, but mostly it just hung over their heads, Bucky’s enlistment. They cleared up, side by side, washing the dishes and still speaking about unimportant things like the film they were planning to see, and the wailing of some child that they could hear through the window. It was exhausting._

_Later that night, though, when the sky had darkened outside and Bucky was twisting the dials on the old radio they had managed to pick up, Steve said softly, “I’ll miss you, you know that, right?”_

_Bucky nodded. He knew it. He also knew that there was no way that Steve could possibly miss him the way that he would miss Steve. He swallowed, thinking about how empty his days would be, void of everything about Steve that he had grown accustomed to having every day. His fierce energy, his smiles, his recklessness. Bucky had known for a while now that Steve meant more to him than could be put into words._

_“Listen, Steve,” he began, not knowing exactly what he was going to say, as Steve said, “Buck, I need to…”_

_They paused, neither one of them continuing from the first fragments of their sentences. Finally, as the silence started to stretch and buzz in their ears, Steve swore under his breath and pushed his way off the couch, making his way towards Bucky. Bucky abandoned the radio, leaving it at a station that was just starting a new song, and straightened up. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but before he could manage to get a word out, Steve had crowded him back into the wall. It was almost amusing, how easily skinny little Steve Rogers could take control of a situation, but there was determination soaked into every bone of his body and Bucky was helpless. All he could do was wait, and try to decipher the emotions that were flickering across his friend’s face._

_Before he could come to any definite conclusion, though, Steve had pressed forwards again, tilting his head up and managing to align his lips with Bucky’s. And then they were kissing, and Steve’s lips were warm and unfaltering and a little sloppy, but better than anything that Bucky had dared to think about. Without meaning for it to happen, his arms reached up around Steve’s torso to bring him nearer, and Steve exhaled slightly, pressing closer with enthusiasm._

_It was all that Bucky could do not to grab Steve right there and drag him towards the nearest bed (or flat surface, for that moment – at this point, he wasn’t going to be picky), but something held him back. He was sure that this was some momentary lapse in judgement for Steve. There was no way that this could ever continue, and sooner or later Steve would realize this and pull back._

_Bucky hated to think about what it would feel like to have Steve step away, so instead he turned his thoughts to other things, like the feeling of Steve’s hands gliding across his hips and resting near his hips. He closed his eyes, trying to burn this moment into his memory. There was no way that he would ever forget this. He wouldn’t allow it._

_“Bucky…” Steve gasped, when Bucky moved his lips away from Steve’s and instead found his way to Steve’s neck instead. He grinned, pulling away slightly to look at Steve, whose blond hair was somehow already tousled, his lips stained a bright pink against his pale skin. He motioned towards the nearest bedroom, and Bucky nodded, not even bothering to try and supress the happiness that was written all over his face._

 

 

 

 

 

Bucky. The way Steve had moaned his name that night resonated in his mind, and he finally accepted, in a sort of quiet resignation, that he was the man from the museum. Bucky. The name felt more familiar now, like it actually belonged to him. It wasn’t completely comfortable, but it was close, and that was all he needed.

 

Bucky thought about his patchwork quilt of memories, spanning from childhood to adulthood. There were too many holes, too many blank patches of time, but for now, he was satisfied. He knew that Steve Rogers would be looking for him, and with him would come more memories and help. For the first time in ages, Bucky felt hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Any feedback/kudos/comments are really, really appreciated. Thanks for reading!  
>   
> If anyone wants to come hang out, my tumblr is [lavenderjehan](http://lavenderjehan.tumblr.com)!


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